Salmonella bacteria have been implicated as the source of food poisoning, gastrointestinal infection, and generalized (septicemic) infection, that can become quite severe and even lethal in humans and livestock. A common source of salmonella infection is from the food supply, particularly livestock-derived food, such as poultry, as well as other farm-raised animals, such as cattle, swine, and sheep. Poultry farms and other livestock operations are continually at risk of salmonella infection, with subsequent survival and multiplication. These bacteria are potentially infectious to humans. Accordingly, the early detection of salmonella contamination or infection on these livestock farms, prior to delivery of contaminated food to processing plants and subsequently to the marketplace, is a primary concern of the livestock industry and governmental regulating and research agencies.
Currently salmonella sampling methods involve the direct collection of feathers, feces and other animal traces, a time and labor consuming process, which samples, must then be cultured, plated, and grown, and biochemically analyzed, constituting a process which can consume up to 14 days, before complete results are obtained. Clearly, a faster test, with equal reliability, which is not excessively labor intensive or costly is necessary to prevent eventual delivery of contaminated food stuffs to the marketplace by prior detection of the infection or potential infection. Provision of faster turn-around time in the laboratory provides for faster testing of a greater number of samples, which is needed for industry-grade (extensive) monitoring prior to slaughter, or other forms of in house or regulatory quality control. To date, current sampling, culturing and plating methods take too long, and frequently give rise to problems in distinguishing salmonella bacteria from other related non-toxic bacterial cultures. It would also be desirable to provide a method which gives some indication of the animals' condition prior to sacrifice.